Jon
Rhodes met one of the survivors.
THEY LEFT US TO DIE IN
HELL
Yorkshire Evening Post Thursday 15 February
2001
If the amazing story of how a British army unit escaped from the hell of the Burmese jungle was ever offered to Hollywood it would probably be laughed off as too far-fetched.
|
|
|
THERE are few who believe Sir Winston Churchill was anything other than a war hero. The man epitomised the British bulldog, from his famous victory sign to his rousing radio broadcasts which buoyed the nation’s morale in the face of Nazi tyranny. As the bombs dropped on every major English town and city and our troops beat a hasty retreat from Dunkirk, Churchill’s dogged resilience and unwavering belief that Old Blighty could not be beaten gave him the public image of a great leader and supreme military tactician. But to others - and none more so than the Yorkshire-based troops who served under the King’s flag in Burma in the Second World War -Churchill was a traitor, the man who left them to die thousands of miles from home. Cut off from help, abandoned by their commanders, 900 men fought an unimaginable, and until now, largely unknown battle for survival which led to outstanding levels of courage, unspeakable hardship, descents into suicide and even mass execution.
|
|
Murderous
Just 79 men managed to survive the murderous trek across 1,000 miles of the most inhospitable terrain as the Japanese army advanced from seemingly every side. However, the troops’ relief at making it over the border into India was short-lived as the survivors quickly discovered just how little those in command had actually cared for their lives.
Gerald Fitzpatrick, who was a raw 22-year-old recruit with the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry when he was shipped into the hell hole that was Burma, says the betrayal will live with him forever.
“The facts of the
matter are that we were condemned men, not condemned by the enemy
we were fighting but by our own country,” he explained.
"From what we know now we were given up as a lost hope
soon after we started out and were just left to perish out there."
“There was nothing worse than believing you were fighting for King and country
only to then find out that It had abandoned you?’
Churchill’s “betrayal” was finally revealed 30 years
after the event when secret signals, or messages, sent from the War Cabinet to
American President Franklin D. Roosevelt were made public.
In one, dated April 1 1942, Churchill says: “My feeling Is that the wisest stroke for Japan would be to press on through Burma northwards into China and try to make a job of that They may disturb India, but I doubt it’s a serious invasion.”
While the scale of such a sentence may mean little now, for the 900 or so men on the ground desperately trying to escape the rapidly advancing Japanese army, Churchill’s statement was the ultimate act of treachery.
Before the signal was sent the already fragmented British forces had for three months been trying to fight their way out of Burma in the belief back-up was on its way. No rescue force was ever sent as Burma and the British soldiers left in its heartland were given up for dead.
The nightmare began just 6 hours after Second Lieutenant Fitzpatrick disembarked at Rangoon. Following the Japanese invasion, the British troops had two choices, be cut to pieces or escape northwards to India.
Starvation
Along the long route to safety hundreds were killed by Japanese troops and Burmese collaborators or died due to illness, starvation or thirst.
Debilitating illnesses such as malaria and little or no communications hampered the baffle-weary troops, who were involved in daily gun and bayonet exchanges with a fresher, better-equipped enemy.
The pressure became too much for some men, some of whom took their own lives and others talked of mutiny as the troops quickly realised that those in command had little or no idea about how they were going to get out of Burma alive. “I was 22 and had gone to a country I knew nothing about,” Mr Fitzpatrick recalled.
“At that age you take it as read that the senior officers above you know what they are doing, but it did not take too long to realise that this was not the case here.
“We had experienced men who made known their apprehension at the inadequacies of those in command.”
The most striking example of this was when the, by then, rag-tag band of soldiers reached the village of Taungtha and discovered members of the Burmese Galon Army burning down a school with a number of young women trapped Inside. The 27 men who were rounded up were suspected of having already firebombed oilfields and slaughtered British troops.
Because of the state of the Yorkshire battalion they were in no position to take any prisoners and releasing the Burmese, it was felt, would be equivalent to signing their own death warrants
Executed
In his book detailing the escape from Burma, No Mandalay, No Maymyo, Mr Fitzpatrick explains: “As the man capturing the prisoners, and knowing all the circumstances I made the decision that the prisoners had to be executed and put it to the titular commander, Chadwick.
“Reluctant to act, Chadwick turned his back and said ‘I want no part in this’. He had washed his hands of the affair.”
Assuming command, Fitzpatrick ordered three company commanders to carry out the executions - a bullet to the back of the head and then the bodies were pushed into a dried up river bed. Years later, the incident in Taungtha was investigated by Scotland Yard, but no action was taken against those involved.
Mr Fitzpatrick remains left in little doubt that had the Burmese not been executed, the battalion would never have made it out alive.
“I have never regretted what happened there and neither have any of the people who were with me at the time,” said the Hunslet-born soldier, who still lives in Leeds.
‘We were a lot weaker than they were, had they been released I have no doubt we would have all been killed. We could not allow that to happen, it was a case of us or them.
“You have to remember the state we were all in. There has never been a British unit as desperate as that one.
“You have a commanding officer who does not want to take any responsibility so you can imagine the state of the unit. We were condemned men ourselves.”
Few people today could comprehend taking such a decision without first understanding the hell the once-proud battalion had descended into. Whatever the later implications, the incident did help solidify the remainder of the unit and they forged on, making the Indian border on May 19.
In his book, Mr Fitzpatrick admits that when he crossed the border and walked past a commanding officer he “didn’t know whether to salute him or shoot him.”
There was to be no more shooting, but the memories of losing so many close comrades and the overwhelming feeling of betrayal still lives with those who made it through. They often meet through the Burma Star organisation to talk about the old times and to remember their fallen mates.
“The word to sum up the lads out there was valour,” Mr Fitzpatrick added, “and I am so proud to have served alongside them.” His wife Patricia added: “There is an affinity between these men that you or I just can’t understand.
“When they are together they are an exclusive club who mean so much to each other.
They are more than brothers, they’re all part of another family, a family which started out there in Burma through the experiences they went through together.”
Forgotten
They were the forgotten army who, in the 60 years since the events in the jungle and scorched plains of Burma, have come to learn more and more about how they were ‘abandoned” by King, country, and in particu1ar the Prime Minister.
"I didn’t write my book because of bitterness, I did it so I knew that, somewhere down the line at least, the truth was written down and out there in order that people could read it,” said Mr Fitzpatrick, who was later promoted to Captain and after the war worked as a General Staff Officer in Germany. The Berlin Air Lift was instigated from his office.
One lad who was with me all the way throughout and died just before last Christmas was Jim Major. I gave him a galley proof of the book and he told me "it was spot on" and that I’d told the truth. That is good enough for me.”
• Mr Fitzpatrick’s book No Mandalay, No Maymyo is on sale now, published by the Book Guild.
